Plowden, Charles
Plowden, Charles
Born 1517-8; died in London, 6 Feb., 1584-5. Son of Humphrey Plowden of Plowden Hall, Shropshire, and Elizabeth his wife, educated at Cambridge, he took no degree. In 1538 he was called to the Middle Temple where he studied law so closely that he became the greatest lawyer of his age, as is testified by Camden, who says that “as he was singularly well learned in the common laws of England, whereof he deserved well by writing, so for integrity, of life he was second to no man of his profession” (Annals, 1635, p. 270). He also studied at Oxford for a time, and besides his legal studies, qualified as a surgeon and physician in 1552. On Mary’s accession he became one of the council of the Marches of Wales. In 1553 he was elected member of Parliament for Wallingford and in the following year was returned for two constituencies, Reading and Wooten-Bassett; but on 12 Jan., 1554-5, he withdrew from the House, dissatisfied with the proceedings there. Succeeding the Plowden estates in 1577, he lectured on law at Middle Temple and during his treasurership the fine hall of that inn was begun. His fidelity to the Catholic faith prevented any further promotion under Elizabeth., but it is a family tradition that the queen offered him the Lord Chancellorship on condition of his joining the Anglican Church. He successfully defended Bishop Horne, and helped Catholics by his legal knowledge. On one occasion he was defending a gentleman charged with hearing Mass, and detected that the service had been performed by a layman for the purpose of informing against those who were present, whereon he exclaimed, “The case is altered; no priest, no Mass”, and thus secured an acquittal. This incident gave rise to the common legal proverb, “The case is altered, quoth Plowden”. He himself was required to give bond in 1569 to be of good behaviour in religious matters for he was delated to the Privy Council for refusing to attend the Anglican service, though no measures seem to have been taken against him. His works were: “Les comentaries ou les reportes de Edmunde Plowden (London, 1571), often reprinted and translated into Quares del Monsieur Plowden” (London, no date), included in some editions of the Reports; “A Treatise on Succession”, manuscripts preserved among the family papers. Its object was to prove that Mary, Queen of Scots, was not debarred from her right to the English throne by her foreign birth or the will of Henry VIII. Several manuscripts legal opinions are preserved in the British Museum and the Cambridge University Libraries. He married Catherine Sheldon of Beoley and by her had three sons and three daughters. There is a portrait effigy on his tomb in the Temple Church, and a bust in the Middle Temple Hall copied from one at Plowden.
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EDWIN BURTON Transcribed by Jo Lickteig
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIICopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Plowden, Charles
an English Roman Catholic divine who belonged to the Order of Jesuits, was born in 1743, and educated at Rome, where he entered into the society in 1759. On his return to his own country, after the suppression of his order in 1773, he was one of the most zealous advocates for the proposed reorganization of the Jesuits in England. He afterwards became president of the Catholic college of Stonyhurst, in Lancashire, and died in 1821. His publications are against Butler and Berington and for the restoration of the Jesuits (1792, 8vo; 1796, 8vo). Also, Remarks on the Memoirs of G. Panzani (Liege, 1794, 8vo): Considerations of the Modern Opinions of the Fallibility of the Pope (1776, 8vo).
An older brother of his, Dr. FRANCIS PLOWDEN, a noted member of the English Chancery Bar, is the author of Jura Anglorum, the Rights of Englishmen (1792, 8vo), and Church and State (1795, 4to), which both plead for Roman Catholic recognition by the English government, and became the subject of much controversy. See Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, 2, 1609, 1610. (J.H.W.)